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I’ve written about Mister Nice Guy’s before but it was way too long ago so the blog is in need of a little updating! I’d guess that most vegans in Melbourne know about Mister Nice Guy’s, but it’s always a top recommendation in vegan groups where people say they are new vegans and want to know what’s about, or when people are visiting Melbourne and asking for advice on where to go for vegan food. Personally I always recommend a visit to the bake shop.

The bake shop has introduced additional products over the past couple of years, like the brioche donut bronuts, savoury brioche rolls and monster shakes. The photos below span the last year or so. This is the salted caramel pretzelstein:

Cupcakes are always a hit with the fam. The pic at the top of this post is a peanut butter chocolate. My favourite of the sweet goods would have to be the bronuts, I never thought anything would top the cinnamon buns (well, maybe the lemon buns) but the bronuts, especially the peanut butter one I tried that was a filled donut, are excellent:

Mister Nice Guy’s remains at the top of my family’s list of favourite places to eat. My son has been a fan of the cinnamon buns since we first started going to the bake shop and I don’t see that changing any time soon (in fact he once asked for a giant cake sized cinnamon bun to serve as a birthday cake). I like trying something different every time, but the brioche sandwiches are probably my more recent favourites though the curry katsu roll I had once was really good. The brioche sandwiches are very filling, with the brioche being a little sweeter than regular bread but for me it works well, I can only finish half then leave the rest for the sandwich press another time.

Mister Nice Guy’s is well known in the vegan community and the bake shop opened around 2010, though there were market stalls before that. If you’re visiting Melbourne, consider making time to take a trip to the bake shop! You can catch the 57 or 82 tram, or take the train and get off at Ascot Vale train station. Tram 57 goes along Union Road and tram 82 is a short walk away. The 472 bus isn’t far away either.

Ah, Valentine’s Day. Not something I’m personally in to, but DeeW was quite excited. She made a card for me, then asked me to write “Dear Mummy, Happy Valentine’s Day, love from DeeW”. I finished writing, she folded it up and proudly exclaimed “look! I made you a card!”

I had planned on baking something in a heart shaped tin, or making something in my heart shaped moulds but in the end Husband and I thought we would have a special food day. In other words, Mum Hasn’t Been Organised Enough To Prepare Stuff. First stop in the morning was Mister Nice Guy’s Bake Shop. I tried the mini raw strawberry shortcake and it was fantastically good. This is the first time I’ve tried one of the raw offerings from the bake shop and it did not disappoint:

My Valentine’s present to myself, Husband and the kids magically appeared earlier in the week. I had some things to drop off at an op shop and to my delight there was a big “50% off everything” sign on the window. I scored this 1970s Mastermind set, just like the one I had growing up. Not only that, but this I am sure is unused as the scoring pegs were still in a sealed bag and the coloured pegs were in a bag (non-sealed). For $2.50!!!

We haven’t visited Mister Nice Guy’s Bake Shop in quite a while. Well, to be fair Husband did take the kids recently but he forgot that the Bake Shop is closed on a Monday, doh. After the kids beat him up for it, they took it well.

Arthur’s birthday is this week and it appears he has refused my order to stop growing up. I don’t think that will stop him writing stories for me on my birthday with titles such as “how to cook a butt” (actually that one was a graphic novel complete with recipe instructions).

For a pre-birthday treat, Husband took Arthur and DeeW to Mister Nice Guy’s today and he came home bouncing around in excitement, because of this lovely thoughtful gesture:

Arthur was given a cinnamon bun for his birthday-in-advance and declares it one of the best presents he’s ever received. I haven’t had a cinnamon bun myself in ages so asked Husband to get one for me and it was every bit as delicious as always:

Okay, here are a few “What I ate this week” tidbits. There aren’t many because I’ve been sick with no appetite and when I felt okay to eat all I wanted were the oranges and strawberries and bananas.

First up, the Mushroom Pecan Burgers from Dreena Burton’s ‘The Everyday Vegan’. I’ve never been lucky with things made from mushroom. I like whole or sliced mushrooms but if it doesn’t look like a button shape to begin with, I won’t eat it. I can’t bring myself to eat enoki, it falls too much in to the category of alien space food. I’ve never been interested in turning mushrooms in to something else (like a burger), instead just preferring them sliced and tossed through pasta or on a pizza. And that’s really about it. Arthur and DeeW won’t go near mushrooms so I thought I’d be sneaky and whiz them up and put them in burger form. The recipe was very easy and contains tahini and hoisin sauce. I used oats instead of the breadcrumbs:

I liked them but the kids weren’t keen which was pretty frustrating as this is a really good recipe. I suppose they may have eaten them in a bread bun but I want to avoid giving them bread (or gluten, specifically) wherever possible. It’s worth noting Dreena includes a ‘version 2’ recipe in her book Let Them Eat Vegan and you can see those burgers here.

Still, it means I got to have the leftovers to myself, this time in corn tortillas with salsa and vegan sour cream with coriander:

For the first time ever, I made myself tofu scramble. Up until now I was never truly convinced that ‘tofu’ and ‘scramble’ belong in the same sentence. Kind of like apricot chicken. Or any of those ‘fruit’ flavours in the Cadburys family block. I had some tofu that had been defrosted and pressed (I think it was firm tofu) so I just crumbled it and fried it up with a pinch of curry powder and black salt. I haven’t used my black salt much and boy when I added it to the tofu scramble, could you smell egg! It smelt and looked so much like scrambled eggs that I had to sit there for a few minutes trying to will myself to eat it. I added some of the coconut bacon I’d make and some rocket (I love rocket, yeah-eh) along with a little bit of vegan mayo. Delicious!

More burgers from Let Them Eat Vegan!, this time the Lentil Walnut Burgers. The recipe calls for green lentils but I only had brown and they still tasted great. There’s also diced apple (though I grated it) which adds a little sweetness without being too sweet. I really liked these:

I saw these green curry soups at Aldi. I love green curry but not as a soup so I put most of it (but not all the liquid) on brown rice. It wasn’t very good, a bit too sweet and the vegies too blergh looking and I gave up after a few spoonfuls. Then felt a bit crappy because I’d put a couple of these soups (the red curry variety as well) in a bag of goodies for my sister’s birthday:

Woolworths sell these pakoras in their freezer section and they were over a dollar off so I grabbed some as a snack to have back at my mum’s house. They tasted fine enough but were too dry when reheated:

I made the Pecan Date Nibblers from Let Them Eat Vegan! as an experiment for a short family holiday we have coming up. The sweetness comes from the dates and maple syrup though next time I will cut the maple syrup way down as they were pretty sweet. Arthur loved them, DeeW not really. I added pumpkin seeds to the mix:

I made my sister a lemon slice using Mel’s recipe but because I was plain old lazy I didn’t include the dairy free margarine and instead just dumped the condensed soy milk in without heating it. I’ve never used the vegan version of condsensed milk and like the dairy version it’s basically massive sugar overload in canned form. Does it stop one from having a big spoonful? Not usually:

I’m hoping that my food blog posts (well, my cooking I should say) for September will be far more interesting because of Vegan MoFo. I’m looking forward to trying lots of recipes from my cookbooks, especially raw recipes. See you then!

It feels like we haven’t been to Mister Nice Guy’s Bake Shop in aaages. That’s probably because we haven’t been in aaages. Arthur had requested I make pancakes for Mothers Day (as in, Mother does all the work) and I said think again buddy cos I’m not going near a frying pan. We decided on treats from Mister Nice Guy to take to my Mum’s house for afternoon tea.

As usual, there were lots of lovely treats at the bake shop:

My sister and I were pitching in for afternoon tea so got some cake (yum!) and a piece of the grasshopper cheezecake which is mint flavoured. As it was brunch time when I visited the bake shop and I hadn’t had breakfast, I decided to try the ‘BLT’ bagel. Oh my, it was delicious:

Part of our day today involved passing through the suburb of North Melbourne, a lovely part of town:

I love this old lettering on a store right near Mister Nice Guy’s:

… it matches this stove someone put out on the nature strip (grassed areas outside homes):

With Easter approaching, that means hot cross buns are everywhere. Our big supermarkets came under fire from church organisations for stocking hot cross buns right after Christmas. I must confess I’m not really a hot cross bun fan. I mean, they’re okay but I just get over them really quickly. Every year I say I’ll bake my own and I might still do that for the Orthodox Easter which is still weeks away.

Mister Nice Guy’s Bake Shop have hot cross buns this week. So you know where we headed off to, right?

These hot cross buns are more along the line of what I prefer in a HCB. A sticky glaze (apricot jam) and not just a boring eggy/milky wash. Light and fluffy and no overdone fruit inside. Big too 🙂

Mister Nice Guy’s Bake Shop is located at 151 Union Road, Ascot Vale and very close to public transport. Here is their stockists web page:

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Hello and welcome! I'm Faye and I blog about vegan life here in Melbourne, Australia. I love connecting readers with news of events, dining options, products, services and anything else that can help people already living, or those considering switching to a more plant based lifestyle. Family, my Greek roots, secondhand shopping and my home town are also a focus on my blog.